Week of November 8th, 2013

Top 3 literal translations from English to Mandarin for this week...
# 3 - Turkey = Huo ji (Fire chicken)
# 2 - Sausage = Xiang Chang (Fragrant intestine)
#1 - To call someone a brown noser = Pai ta de ma pi (You pat the horse to make him fart)
 I love that last one and will make it my mission to spread it throughout the globe. 

This weeks installment of Chinese narcolepsy comes from the Costco and this guy testing out the office chair display.

Completely out.    Kinda looked like my dad (and likely future me) with the well worn khakis and long earlobes.  I figure he must have been with his wife who takes her sweet time waiting for every sample while leaving her cart in the middle off the roadway while she waits in line.  Took the above as I walked in, and he was still there as I left a good 10-15 minutes later.  Luckily for him, this was not the busiest spot in the warehouse.



Around our building, I see this old woman nearly every day as she pushes a decent sized cart collecting cardboard for recycling.

 

She is permanently bent over at a 90 degree angle.  Was talking to Betty about her and she was telling me that she saw a news show about her recently.  She has terrible scoliosis (obviously), but that she is out there working her butt off as her son was recently handicapped and lost his job, so she needs to make money to help pay for his medical bills and living expenses.  When I feel myself getting sick of the world of political hate speak/dysfunction where the discourse is not black and white, but black and blacker, or that the Pakistani Taliban just voted The Butcher of Swat (the guy who ordered that 14 year-old Malala Yousafzai to be shot in the face for advocating girls getting and education) to lead their organization, I look forward to seeing this lady in the street and hope there are more of her than them.

In lighter thoughts, have been on a major Latino food kick lately.  They recently opened a joint around the corner called Fiesta that is run by a Peruvian/Cuban family, and we had super high hopes of getting the real deal, but they just do not bring it.  Not sure what their problem is, but it tastes like crap.  Have gone a couple times in hopes they get it together, but sadly...  Last Friday, they offered a "Mexican" cooking class at the local community center and one of the dishes they demonstrated was peccadillo, which is a stew of meat and veggies.  Very good and have recreated it at home to pretty decent reviews.  Paul even asked for the leftovers this morning with an egg on top.  While that is all good, there were two big takeaways from the class.  First, we were discussing our communal frustration with Fiesta and one of the people in the class kept saying we need to try a place called Dos Chinos that opened last Spring.  Hadn't heard of it, but with the absolute dearth of a Latin food place in Taipei that is edible, we ran there last Saturday night.  Talk about great...they made us some mean burritos/tacos with chorizo and pulled pork that was as good as I've ever eaten.  The whole family felt the same.  It's a hike downtown so isn't a decent option for a weekly visit, but is in a cool neighborhood and is worth planning ahead to get some of their goodness.

The second take away was learning the key spice that makes Mexican food taste the way it does.  Cumin.  They put it in everything and it immediately transforms anything into tasting Mexican.  I've written before how the locals here smell of oily garlic, and the conversation I related of the Indian guy, where we talked about how Indians smell of curry powder, but how Indians thought that Westerners smelled of dairy.  Now knowing about this cumin thing, I totally get that the odor of a typical Mexican person is the hint of cumin. 

Lastly for today, CNN ran a story about the upcoming naming of the panda at the National Zoo.  The choices...Bao Bao, Ling Hua, Mulan, Long Yun and Zhen Bao.  Why do we have to always give pandas born in the US Chinese names?  How many Chinese people do you know that use their Chinese names when they come to the West?  Zero.  I do not know a single Chinese person here that hasn't given themselves a Western name.  This is one of those cultural phenomenons that I will be working to get to the bottom of soon.  I will also be running my own contest to assign myself a Chinese name and  hope to have a list of candidates for you in a week or so.  If you have any suggestions to add to the list, please feel free to submit.  I will be choosing those that are real names and not the made up ones like they did for those Korean pilots that crashed the plane in SF a few months ago, although that was some funny shit.